


every time i tell my story (i begin with you)

by atlantisairlock



Category: Ocean's 8 (2018)
Genre: Backstory, Canon Compliant, Childhood Friends, Coming of Age, F/F, Growing Up, Growing Up Together, Happy Ending, Light Angst, Marriage Proposal, Near Future
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-23 15:19:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14936810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atlantisairlock/pseuds/atlantisairlock
Summary: When Lou is five, she falls in love with her best friend.





	every time i tell my story (i begin with you)

**Author's Note:**

> canon compliant bc no real exploration of their childhood so I Do What I Want.
> 
> title from 'we had everything' by broods. it is basically The Song for this fic.

When Lou is five, she falls in love with her best friend.

Debbie Ocean is a whirlwind of a child - loud, energetic, catching Lou unawares in her path and sweeping her up into her wildly intense sphere. She pretty much rules the playground at kindergarten, can even twist the teachers around her little finger. She and Lou find each other on day three, when Lou tumbles off the swings and everyone laughs at her and Debbie yells at all of them to shut up. She gets into trouble for that, but Lou takes the punishment with her. Doesn't let her stand alone. 

The next day, Debbie slides her hand into Lou's when they're let out for recess, and takes her over to the sandbox, which they both monopolise for the rest of the hour. Debbie takes her hand like it's an inevitability - so sure, so steady, and for Lou, it feels right. It feels, somehow, like all five years of her life so far have led up to this moment. They fit together. They become  _them._

It's something Lou never really finds a name for, even after she becomes Debbie's lieutenant. Her bodyguard, her defender, her right hand. Debbie leads - always, Debbie leads, born for it, growing into it as easy as anything, living that life, even as a kid. Lou slips into her role easy too. It starts as a debt, because she never, ever forgets the way Debbie stood up for her first. She takes the blows that come Debbie's way. She watches Debbie's six. Where Debbie goes, she follows, one step behind, always watching, always there. Debbie is her anchor. Debbie is her sun. Debbie becomes Lou's universe, her entire reason for being. Loves her beyond reason from the very beginning. 

 

 

In their first year of elementary school, Debbie proposes to Lou by the side gate. Nobody enters or exits via the side gate, so it's as quiet and secluded and secret as Debbie likes. She grabs Lou's hand during recess, as usual, and brings her there, and brandishes two mood rings with a wide grin. They're simple, light, cheap - probably from the dollar store down the street - and Debbie holds them like they're the most precious things in the world. 

She doesn't get down on one knee or give a speech or kiss Lou, but she does slide the ring on Lou's finger and declare that they're married. She promises Lou that when the two of them are older, they'll have a proper wedding and everything and they'll live happily ever after, just like in the fairytales. 

She doesn't say she loves Lou outright either, but Lou can read between the lines. 

 

 

Lou doesn't wear her ring to school, or at home, or anywhere, really. Her parents don't approve of Debbie and she's afraid they'll take the ring away if they know it's from her, so she hides it in the drawer of her desk. Debbie doesn't wear her ring either - like Lou, she secretes it somewhere safe because, she tells Lou, it's her greatest treasure and treasure has to be hidden. 

But they still spend every recess together. Sit beside each other during class. Do homework together in the library after school. They're never apart, and nothing changes.

 

 

Everything changes, so gradually that it manages to take Lou by surprise, so rapidly that it still manages to break her heart. 

It isn't until midway through middle school that Lou figures out that the Oceans aren't a normal family and that her parents had good reason to be suspicious of Debbie, and her brother, and  _her_ parents, and pretty much all of the Oceans. Debbie's childhood has been seething with crime from the very beginning. She's been taught skills that take her on the wrong side of the law. She's been born into a legacy of criminal activity. 

And the thing is that Debbie loves it. Debbie falls into that life like she does everything else - with single-minded devotion, enthusiasm and passion. She starts following in her family's footsteps from sixth grade. Simple things, first - being an accomplice, first. She works with her brother, does research for her parents, acts as the eyes and ears for her uncles and aunts. 

Lou never gets involved in this side of her life. Lou isn't  _allowed._ She offers her help to Debbie, once, after she figures it out, and Debbie says no. Lou keeps asking, keeps offering, almost  _demands_ the one time Debbie gets the short end of the stick in a fight, but Debbie always, always says no. And it shatters Lou, to think that Debbie would keep her out of this, after everything that they've been through together, when they're best friends, when they're  _married,_ technically, and it isn't until it all implodes and Debbie gets sent to juvie that Lou finally understands.

Debbie wasn't trying to keep her out.

Debbie was trying to protect her. 

The next year, her first year of high school, she spends alone.

 

 

High school is rough. She's still surrounded by the same people she's known all her life, who've seen her grow up by Debbie's side. Now that she doesn't have Debbie standing shoulder-to-shoulder with her, people see her as an easy target. The teasing turns to taunts and the taunts turn to action. The first time someone says something disparaging about Debbie, Lou punches him out so badly that she breaks his jaw in three places. She gets suspended and damn near expelled, but her parents pay people off under the table and her father screams at her for a solid hour and Lou goes back to school holding her head high and taking no shit. 

All the anger stays inside her, all her four years. Anger at herself for not protecting Debbie better, because that's always supposed to have been her job, her responsibility. Anger at Debbie for not being  _here,_ which is irrational and stupid and makes her even angrier at herself. Anger at everyone else, everyone who says  _anything_ about Debbie or about her or about  _them._

She takes Debbie's place in the school halls, acting for her while she isn't there. People give her a wide berth except the hand-picked few she uses to peddle the alcohol and drugs she brings onto campus. She never needs to get into a fight again, just outsources that to someone else, has them take the fall. Narrowly avoids being sent to juvie a few times in her freshman year, then never again, because she gets better at hiding, framing, pushing the blame. 

She doesn't get to contact Debbie. The Oceans leave town and the centre Debbie gets sent to isn't disclosed and even if she sent letters, Lou's pretty sure her parents would find some way to intercept and destroy them. It breaks Lou's heart and she takes to wearing her mood ring every day, now, everywhere she goes. She doesn't care what happens from now, from here on out. She's Debbie's deputy, her second, her girl, forever. Nothing can change that. Nothing will. 

She'll find her. Somehow or another, Lou will find her, they'll find each other again. 

 

 

She goes to uni and falls back into the same patterns. She divides her time equally between working on her degree, doing some petty criminal shit around campus, and searching for Debbie. She delves into research and does her best to hack into databases and  _looks_ for  _years,_ and then two days before she graduates, there's a knock on her dorm door. She opens it, and Debbie is standing there, almost ten years older, looking so different, but still undoubtedly Debbie.

"Hey, Lou," she says, and Lou's entire world falls right back into place. 

 

 

Or she thinks it does, and then it turns out it doesn't, because things have been changing while she wasn't around to see them. Debbie is different now. Her time in juvie has changed her, moulded her into something different, and it makes something in Lou's heart squirm uncomfortably when she thinks about it. 

But Lou hasn't changed, even if Debbie has. She's still here, just waiting on Debbie's order, ready to jump in blind and risk everything on Debbie's word. Lou takes her B(Sc) and books it out of state and settles down to be Debbie's partner in crime. They run cons, start small - well, small-ish - and get bigger and bigger, more ambitious, more risky, and so sweet when they succeed. It feels good. Sometimes they cut it close and Lou'll have to roar up to the curb in her bike and helmet and Debbie will jump on the back as they make their getaway, laughing and yelling into the night, and it's so cliché but so good, and that's the happiest Lou thinks she's ever been, but.

There's always a but. 

She's still in love with Debbie. It's not even a fact at this point, it's a certainty, this absolute factor. Water is wet, sun rises in the east, she's in love with Debbie. She will always be in love with Debbie. She took their side gate proposal seriously when she was seven and she still does, almost twenty years on. They were seven and she was irrevocably in love with Debbie and Debbie was irrevocably in love with her too. 

She's not so sure about the second part, now, and that, more than anything, scares the shit out of her, but she never asks, and Debbie never gives her answer.

 

 

And then Claude Becker happens. 

 

 

Claude Becker - Claude-fucking-piece-of-dog-shit-Becker - makes his way into their lives and the world shifts on its axis. Claude Becker gets into Debbie's head, into Debbie's _heart_ , and makes Lou's skin crawl. He's a fucking rat and she knows it from the start and straight-up refuses to work any of his plans. She and Debbie get into screaming fights about it, but on this one thing, Lou stands firm. She's been trying to protect Debbie all her life, and when it comes to Claude, she still is. She tells Debbie that Claude is a liar, Claude is a traitor at heart, they can't trust him, he'll screw them over at some point or another, and Debbie doesn't listen. Debbie doesn't listen, and signs a paper, and gets arrested. 

Lou has never more hated being right in her life. 

 

 

Debbie narrowly escapes being sent to max but she doesn't get visitation rights anyway, and suddenly Lou is back in her first year of high school, aching and furious and thirsting for blood. Claude is hit with zero consequences and turns untouchable and it makes Lou want to scream. The day Debbie gets sentenced, she downs an entire bottle of shitty vodka and nearly, so nearly, drives to Claude's house. Nearly just walks right in and bludgeons the fucker to death, to hell with the consequences, to hell with anything, because Debbie is going to prison (again) and Lou has failed to protect her (again) and she just wants him dead, wants him to suffer.

And then the light catches on her ring, and Lou slowly puts the bottle down, takes a deep breath, and goes to bed. 

She's been Debbie's right hand her whole life. Been her best friend her whole life. And it burns in Lou's chest, how much she wants to say  _wife,_ how much she wishes she could. She knows what she wants. She knows what she needs to do, too. 

So she settles down quietly. She keeps her nose clean and still does everything she's been doing under the table, careful, cautious. She goes out to seedy clubs, brings a few girls with dark hair and dark eyes home, fucks them, doesn't let them stay. She keeps all of Debbie's stuff safe and waits. 

She's been waiting all her life, too.

She can wait a little longer. 

 

 

Five years, eight months, and twelve days later, Debbie gets out, and Lou gets a text.

She goes.

Of course she goes.

Was there ever any doubt?

 

 

Debbie tells Lou she wants to rob the Met Gala, and Lou's laughter just rattles in her mouth, her throat, settling in her chest, because  _of course, of course._

She lays out the plan in a cafe over a good meal. Tells Lou she  _needs_ her there, and her gaze is so soft but so piercing, looking right into Lou, and she can't breathe. She tries to joke, asks Debbie if this is her way of proposing. Debbie grins.  _I don't even have a ring yet, baby._

And Lou thinks dully about the mood ring she still has, hidden away somewhere safe, and Debbie's still talking, but she can barely hear her for the way the world is spinning around her, crashing at her feet, falling apart, her entire heart breaking, breaking, breaking.

 

 

She still does the job, obviously. Always the loyal lieutenant, no matter what, because Debbie needs her, and that's enough. Debbie could call, and Lou would always come, no matter what, and this is no different.

They recruit the girls, they work the plan, they do their jobs, and everything is going smoothly, until Lou finds out that Debbie's setting Daphne Kluger's date up as  _Claude Becker_ and she damn near loses her shit. She drags Debbie down to a quiet spot away from the others and she doesn't read Debbie the riot act per se, but close enough. 

Debbie reassures her that it's going to be fine, that none of them are going back to prison, that Claude Becker isn't going to screw up any of their lives, as if that's what Lou gives a fucking shit about. She has to dig her fingernails into her palm to keep from screaming or worse, crying, because she can't believe this. Can't believe that, after all this time, Debbie would still make this about  _him._ The man who ruined her life, who ruined  _their_ lives. She's scared because this isn't what they should be doing,  _no jobs in a job,_ she's scared that history is going to repeat itself, she's scared - 

She's scared that even after everything, he's still the one Debbie wants. 

She's not sure if she could take that. 

 

 

They still run the job, because they've come too far to back out now. She still follows Debbie's every order to the letter because she's lived like that for so long she's not sure she knows any other way. They pull it off, it goes perfectly, they steal priceless treasures and land Claude Becker in jail and bring Daphne Kluger on board and then it's done. They've done it. 

It's over.

 

 

Only she gets put in charge of dealing with the finances, because shockingly, it's not that easy to put hundreds of millions in anybody's bank account especially after the theft of the Toussaint makes headlines on papers all around the world. Lou works the sheets and the assets and the cash and that's how she eventually figures out that some things don't tally. In the bigger scheme of things it's a small thing - just a little over ten grand is missing - but they all risked a lot for this, all of them, and there was an agreement, and someone taking ten grand more or less still isn't the right thing. It's the principle of it. 

She goes to Debbie about it, tells her ten grand worth of jewels is missing, and that's when Debbie goes a bit red, averting her glance. "Oh, right, yeah. I took a bit extra, off the books."

Lou sighs -  _Jesus,_ Debbie. "Okay, mind telling me what you did with it, at least?" 

She expects Debbie to laugh it off, tell her not to worry, she'll make up for it. She doesn't expect Debbie's entire expression to soften. "Yeah, Lou. You were going to be the first one to know." 

And then she takes this deep breath, and drops to one knee, and Lou thinks the earth stops turning for a second. Everything just stops, and her whole world narrows onto what's right in front of her - Debbie, on one knee, taking a box from her pocket, this tiny velvet box, opening it to reveal a gorgeous ring with a perfect diamond on top. 

"I said I didn't have a ring yet, then, and I didn't, not really," Debbie says. Her voice is soft, but it rings so loud in Lou's ears, the blood rushing, the tears already blurring her vision. "I had a ring. A ring I've owned since I was seven years old, a ring I used to propose to my best friend, to the love of my life, before I knew anything at all. And I didn't, Lou. I was  _seven._ I didn't know anything about anything, but I knew one thing, that I was in love with you. Always have been, always will be. I was in love with you when I was seven and I was in love with you when we were in middle school, and I was in love with you when they carted me off to juvie. And I was an idiot, Lou. I was reckless, and stupid, and so blind, and I didn't listen to you, I didn't trust you enough, and I could apologise for the rest of my life, but it will never be enough."

Lou very badly wants to tell Debbie that she'll always be enough, just her, just this, just them, but Debbie continues. "They give us news in prison. I know this is legal now. We can get married, for real, legally, which is kind of ridiculous considering our entire lives pretty much operate outside the law, but - you deserve this. I want you to have this. I want  _us_ to have this, if nothing else." Lou is looking closer now, and  _God,_ the ring - Debbie's put a diamond on top of her mood ring, and Lou nearly bursts into tears right then and there. 

Debbie's looking up at her like she never wants to look anywhere else. Lou thinks she wants to wake up to that forever. "Lou, will you marry me?" 

And suddenly it's too much, and she's just standing there making this hideous droning noise as she cries, and she can't stop crying, and Debbie's standing up and taking Lou into her arms, and she might be crying too. 

When she was five, Debbie took Lou's hand in her own and curled their fingers together and took her out to the playground, and Lou knew all five years of her life were leading up to this.

Over twenty years later, Debbie's taking her hand again, sliding the ring onto her finger, and Lou thinks that maybe  _this_ is what her life was leading up to. Everything, all of it. Leading up to choking out a  _yes._ Leading up to Debbie's soft laughter, the tears in her eyes. Leading up to pulling Debbie close, kissing her for the very first time, the beginning of the rest of her life. 

 

 

When Lou is five, she falls in love with her best friend.

When Lou is forty, she marries her wife. 

**Author's Note:**

> so the movie just came out in theatres here where i live & i'm planning to watch it at least two more times so sorry in advance for the tsunami of fics you guys are gonna get. feel free to request anything - not just debbielou, i'm open to all other o8 pairings.


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